Chantry Walled Garden

Learn about Horticulture

Enjoy a range of horticultural activities in the safe, welcoming environment of the walled garden, at a pace to suit the individual. Bespoke sessions for young people and adults with learning disability and / or mental health issues.

What’s in the Walled Garden?

Chantry Walled Garden is a heritage walled garden in a public park, with flower borders and vegetable-growing areas, as well as extensive glasshouses as part of our plant nursery. Our base is cosy Nursery Cottage, where there is an accessible courtyard garden with raised beds for wheelchair users. The adjacent workshop has facilities for woodwork and basic construction. In this garden you can learn skills relevant to the horticultural industry as well as enjoy maintaining a garden full of history.

How many flowers…?

A range of horticultural activities are on offer, in the safe, welcoming environment of the walled garden, at a pace to suit you:

Help maintain our flower borders full of heritage varieties

Propagate and grow on plants for Ipswich parks and open spaces

Meet and greet members of the public and help them pick a plant for their garden

Grow heritage vegetables

Gain work experience in the park

Try your hand at making hedgehog homes or bird boxes in our workshop

We have an entire garden area adapted for use by wheelchair users and people with mobility issues or disabilities, including older people.

OPENING HOURS

Volunteer days are Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9.00am till 3.00pm. Bespoke/ one to one sessions can be organised, by arrangement.

Please do get in touch if you would like to volunteer or get involved in any way.

Our Projects

BRANCHING OUT GROWING TOGETHER

Location

Chantry Walled Garden, Chantry Park, Ipswich IP2 0BS

What it is

It’s about encouraging older people to carry on gardening!Would you like to get out a bit more? Would you like to meet new people? Would you like to learn new skills and share ideas? Do you like helping other and contributing to your community? If so, come join our FREE garden-based activities project at Chantry Walled Garden. Its not just about gardening … we run craft, conservation and other activities too!

The People’s Community Garden is an outdoor community resource on a public allotment site, where people of all ages and abilities get together to develop and maintain an inspiring green space. It is a place[...]

Share skills, learn informally, pursue your hobbies and interests! Make friends and get more involved in your community! Are you stuck indoors too much? Would you like to get out more and meet like-minded people[...]

The People’s Community Garden is an outdoor community resource on a public allotment site, where people of all ages and abilities get together to develop and maintain an inspiring green space. It is a place[...]

Chantry Walled Garden is a heritage walled garden in a public park, with flower borders and vegetable-growing areas, as well as extensive glasshouses as part of our plant nursery. Our base is cosy Nursery Cottage,[...]

The People’s Community Garden is an outdoor community resource on a public allotment site, where people of all ages and abilities get together to develop and maintain an inspiring green space. It is a place[...]

Chantry Walled Garden is a heritage walled garden in a public park, with flower borders and vegetable-growing areas, as well as extensive glasshouses as part of our plant nursery. Our base is cosy Nursery Cottage,[...]

ActivGardens Women’s Skills Exchange is offering two FREE workshops in the New Year for you to try something different! ‘Take up Tools’ Tuesday 26th February 2019 Basic woodworking at our ActivSheds project, CRESS Pavilion, Halifax Road,[...]

The People’s Community Garden is an outdoor community resource on a public allotment site, where people of all ages and abilities get together to develop and maintain an inspiring green space. It is a place[...]

Share skills, learn informally, pursue your hobbies and interests! Make friends and get more involved in your community! Are you stuck indoors too much? Would you like to get out more and meet like-minded people[...]

The People’s Community Garden is an outdoor community resource on a public allotment site, where people of all ages and abilities get together to develop and maintain an inspiring green space. It is a place[...]

Chantry Walled Garden is a heritage walled garden in a public park, with flower borders and vegetable-growing areas, as well as extensive glasshouses as part of our plant nursery. Our base is cosy Nursery Cottage,[...]

The People’s Community Garden is an outdoor community resource on a public allotment site, where people of all ages and abilities get together to develop and maintain an inspiring green space. It is a place[...]

Chantry Walled Garden is a heritage walled garden in a public park, with flower borders and vegetable-growing areas, as well as extensive glasshouses as part of our plant nursery. Our base is cosy Nursery Cottage,[...]

The People’s Community Garden is an outdoor community resource on a public allotment site, where people of all ages and abilities get together to develop and maintain an inspiring green space. It is a place[...]

Share skills, learn informally, pursue your hobbies and interests! Make friends and get more involved in your community! Are you stuck indoors too much? Would you like to get out more and meet like-minded people[...]

The People’s Community Garden is an outdoor community resource on a public allotment site, where people of all ages and abilities get together to develop and maintain an inspiring green space. It is a place[...]

Chantry Walled Garden is a heritage walled garden in a public park, with flower borders and vegetable-growing areas, as well as extensive glasshouses as part of our plant nursery. Our base is cosy Nursery Cottage,[...]

The People’s Community Garden is an outdoor community resource on a public allotment site, where people of all ages and abilities get together to develop and maintain an inspiring green space. It is a place[...]

Chantry Walled Garden is a heritage walled garden in a public park, with flower borders and vegetable-growing areas, as well as extensive glasshouses as part of our plant nursery. Our base is cosy Nursery Cottage,[...]

The People’s Community Garden is an outdoor community resource on a public allotment site, where people of all ages and abilities get together to develop and maintain an inspiring green space. It is a place[...]

Share skills, learn informally, pursue your hobbies and interests! Make friends and get more involved in your community! Are you stuck indoors too much? Would you like to get out more and meet like-minded people[...]

The People’s Community Garden is an outdoor community resource on a public allotment site, where people of all ages and abilities get together to develop and maintain an inspiring green space. It is a place[...]

Chantry Walled Garden is a heritage walled garden in a public park, with flower borders and vegetable-growing areas, as well as extensive glasshouses as part of our plant nursery. Our base is cosy Nursery Cottage,[...]

The People’s Community Garden is an outdoor community resource on a public allotment site, where people of all ages and abilities get together to develop and maintain an inspiring green space. It is a place[...]

Chantry Walled Garden is a heritage walled garden in a public park, with flower borders and vegetable-growing areas, as well as extensive glasshouses as part of our plant nursery. Our base is cosy Nursery Cottage,[...]

Location

Chantry Walled Garden

Directions and parking: The nearest public car park is accessed off Hadleigh Road – turn right at top of driveway as you face the mansion. After parking, walk along the path round to right, past Sue Ryder stable block café and bowls pavilion on left. Keep straight on, passing Ipswich Borough Council gate entrance (DO NOT enter!); you will walk along the outer wall of IBC yard with a flower border and green iron gate on right (ignore this entrance). Go through wooden orchard gate straight ahead, and you will find a boardwalk leading to a second green iron gate. Turn in here and turn right towards greenhouses. Follow shingle path round; if no-one is in greenhouses, go through double wooden gates on right, and turn left to Nursery Cottage.

Buses:Number 91 (to Hadleigh and Sudbury) leaves at regular intervals from Ipswich town centre. Ipswich buses run as far as Dickens Road. The site can be reached on foot from London Road.

Our Staff

Susannah Robirosa

ActivGardens Development Manager

I have spent the past five years developing the People’s Community Garden from an abandoned area of allotment site into the thriving community resource it is today. I am now focusing attention on Chantry Walled Garden, building up the horticultural and life skills programme for young adults with complex needs, and developing the site to provide opportunities for volunteers and older people. My job with ActivLives represented quite a career jump – as an English graduate, I worked for many years as a journalist in London and Melbourne before settling on the Essex/ Suffolk border with my husband and three children in 1995. While working as a sub editor at the East Anglian Daily Times, I decided to study for an RHS Diploma in Horticulture at Writtle College. I briefly ran a gardening business with a colleague, before landing a job with the Town & Bridge Project, now ActivLives, in 2008.

Danny Thorington

ActivGardens Development Manager

I am delighted that in April I was appointed as the Peoples Community Garden Coordinator within the ActivGardens Team and am enjoying every minute of it, working alongside such a brilliant team of staff, volunteers, groups, schools and businesses from across our community

I have had a varied career beginning in the construction industry and then moving on to work within education at Suffolk New College, tutoring in construction and then moving across to their Special Educational Needs Department (SEND) for 12 years. Inclusion became a real passion for me and I have volunteered in many roles across many inclusive community clubs for the past 13 years. This volunteering led to roles within community sports development with Suffolk Sport & Team Ipswich which led onto creating the ‘Discovery’ Project across 18 secondary schools, FE colleges and special schools across the county which was so rewarding and I thoroughly enjoyed for five years.

More recently I have been a St Elizabeth Hospice Partnership fundraiser and then transferring across to work with their young adults as their Inclusion & Transition Coordinator.

Gardening, conservation and wildlife have always been a passion of mine, completing my City & Guilds Countryside Conservation & Management qualification and volunteering most weekends for various conservation groups in the ninety’s however in 2016/17 I was the Volunteer Officer for the Suffolk Coast & Heaths & Dedham Vale AONB’s & Stour Valley Project where I accumulated in excess of 500 hours practical skills experience which was amazing.

Finally I urge anyone considering a career in landscapes, gardening, wildlife & conservation, or looking to improve their wellbeing, to don those wellies and volunteer for change with ActivGardens.